RUSH: Paul Ryan is the Republican in the House who is the budget expert. He is in charge, essentially. He leads the team that writes the Republican budget, the Republican blueprint. In this case it is a document that seeks to balance the federal budget in ten years. This is something the Democrat Party has never proposed. They have not proposed a budget in four years. Obama has, but it’s never had a prayer. His budgets have been so unrealistic that Obama’s budgets have yet to get even one vote from any Democrat. Not one Obama budget has ever gotten a vote from a Democrat. The Democrats in the Senate have never presented a budget. We haven’t been operating on a budget. The Republicans are at least accepting the responsibility, and Ryan once again has presented a document that balances it in ten years if it were to be adopted.
Now, there are people that don’t like it, even on the Republican side, because it has tax increases in it. Some would say tax increases on the rich. It leaves some of Obama’s big tax increases in it. But it would totally repeal Obamacare. Let’s first get into this by listening to Congressman Ryan himself from this morning in Washington. He had a press availability where the first thing he did was show a chart, which you can’t see, obviously, it’s radio, but he shows a chart that tells us the path that we’re on. And it’s inescapable to anybody who sees it, we’re headed to ruin. We are headed to absolute financial collapse. He’s got a chart that illustrates it, and then he said this about it.
RYAN: This is the picture that should scare everybody. This is the picture that shows you the path we are on today. We know, without a shred of doubt, we are consigning the next generation to an inferior standard of living. We know, just like in Europe, we are facing a debt crisis in this country. And a debt crisis hurts everybody. But the people who a debt crisis hurts the most are the poor, the elderly, the people who need government the most. They’re the ones who get hurt the first and the worst in the debt crisis. RUSH: Now, the press has categorized Obama’s outreach as a charm offensive. He has invited the Republicans to dinner to talk about the sequester and any number of things. Charm offensive. I thought Obama had natural charm. I didn’t think it took an offensive in order for the charm to be seen. I thought people wanted to hang with Obama regardless whether he invited ’em or not. Anyway, in this next bite Ryan characterizes his plan as an invitation to Obama. RYAN: This is not only a responsible, reasonable, balanced plan, it’s also an invitation. This is an invitation to the president of the United States, to the Senate Democrats, to come together to fix these problems. We don’t think it’s fair to let critical programs like Medicare go bankrupt. We don’t think that it’s fair to take more from hardworking families to spend more in Washington. The most important question isn’t how we balance the budget, but why. A budget is a means to an end. An end is the well-being of the American people. An end is a growing economy that produces opportunity and upward mobility.
RUSH: What he means is the objective here is a growing economy that produces opportunity and upward mobility. The objective is the well-being of the American people. It’s a means to that end. It’s an invitation to Obama. Obama said he’s willing to talk to anybody that’s got a good idea. He never does, but he says he’s willing to. So here’s Ryan with his invitation. Senate reporters got in on the action, and they are still outraged because his budget — by the way, you may wonder, he always references the Senate Democrats but never the House Democrats. Why doesn’t anybody consider them? They don’t have the votes to stop anything in the Senate right now.
That’s really a crucial point, by the way, but the Democrats in the Senate are gonna have to sign on to this if it’s to even have a chance. It doesn’t need a single Democrat vote in the House because the Republicans have a large enough majority. They can dictate what comes out of the House. The Democrats can’t stop it there, but they can in the Senate, and that’s why the focus on the Democrats in the Senate. But his budget does call for the full repeal of Obamacare. The media is outraged that he’s still trying to do that. A reporter said, “We always hear the general sometimes fight the last war. Why are we gonna go through this again, Congressman Ryan? Or is this just a key tenet because it’s such a big part of spending? Did you feel you had to include the repeal of Obamacare, otherwise it wouldn’t pass the House of Representatives? Why do you care about this?”
RYAN: When Americans see exactly what this law entails, which they have not seen all of this details. Those of us who work on these oversight committees, who know what’s gonna happen to the provider networks, who know what’s gonna happen to people when they lose their health insurance or their jobs, they’re not gonna like this law. This is why we’re not only repealing this law because we don’t think we can afford to borrow $1.8 trillion in extra spending this law entails, we think we can replace it with a better health care system, and that’s also something we’re going to be proposing. Not only are we saying, here’s how you save and strengthen Medicare for current and future generations, but here’s a better patient-centered system to replace Obamacare. RUSH: What they’re saying, and in Ryan’s case he’s totally serious and he’s being apolitical in this, Obamacare is unsustainable. Obamacare is an absolute disaster. And he’s right. Most people don’t yet have any idea how it’s going to affect them once it’s fully implemented. Did you see the story, one of the franchise owners for that hamburger chain, Five Guys hamburger chain or whatever (paraphrasing), “We’re gonna have to get rid of a whole bunch of employees, get down to mostly part-timers. We can’t afford Obamacare. We can’t stay in business with it. The prices are gonna go up. The consumer’s are gonna pay for it. That’s the only way my employees can have health care, is if I raise the price of the food here and the customers pay for it.” And he’s worried the customers aren’t gonna have any money, nobody is, because of the budget situation and the economy. So Ryan is saying here, “Look, we have read the bill. We’ve studied it, we in the subcommittees here. We know what’s gonna happen to people when they lose their health insurance at their jobs. Most people don’t know yet, it hasn’t happened. It’s down the road a year or a year-and-a-half. Most people aren’t gonna like it when it happens.” Now, as it stands, a growing majority don’t like Obamacare. An increasing number of people don’t like it, but there’s nothing that can be done about it, other than try to repeal it. And there are some Republicans still trying to do that. They deserve full-fledged support. Ted Cruz, here Paul Ryan, a number of them are refusing to accept defeat on this. What’s frustrating is there are conservative media figures and even elected Republicans who think they’re being magnanimous, and they’re out there saying, “Well, you know, it’s the law of the land now, and we lost the election, and they get to do what they want, and we gave it our best, but we conservatives abide by the law, and that’s the law of the land, and we shouldn’t try to do anything about it.” And we do the same thing when Democrats are elected. We say, “Well, they’re entitled to the judges they want. That’s what winning elections means. If they want some communist despot to be on the Supreme Court, nothing we can do about it. Yeah, they won the election.” And part of that, as I’m sure it is now, is there is this blind-faith hope that by being nice and magnanimous, that when the tables are turned and the Republicans win the White House, that the Democrats will let us have our judges. But, of course, it never happens, does it? They not only prevent, or try to prevent the confirmation of the judges, they set out to destroy them as they did with Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork and Samuel Alito. They try to destroy and they say these judges are out of the mainstream. What do we do? We say they won the election, they get their judges. Well, you know, Obama won. He gets Obamacare. Thankfully there are three or four Republicans who are saying, “Sorry, we’re not through trying to get rid of this,” and Ryan is one of them, along, as I say, with Ted Cruz. ‘Cause it’s utter disaster. It may cause a revolt when people start figuring out what’s gonna happen here. Health care, aside from gay marriage, is the most important thing to people in their lives. It is, Snerdley, I’m telling you. Do you remember the call we had from the Army wife who’s been shut out? Her husband’s deployed, in combat. She’s pregnant, got some cysts, she’s told she can’t get treated. Nobody will cover her. People think health care is a right, and even those who don’t consider it a right think that you ought to be able to go to the doctor and get treated and be able to pay for it. And, believe me, the day’s coming where it’s gonna be far, far more complicated than that. It already is. So let’s stick with the sound bite. Let’s go to Jay Carney, the White House spokesman. Jay Carney this afternoon got a question from Jim Acosta, CNN, about the Ryan budget. He said, “It does away with Obamacare. And I was just curious, Jay, does the president or the White House view that as bargaining in good-faith? Some people call this delusional.”
CARNEY: House Republicans have voted more than 30 times to repeal Obamacare. That seems at some point to be time not well spent. There’s a choice here. Either you reduce the deficit or balance the budget, as he says, by having to raise taxes on the middle class, and voucherizing Medicare and all the other deep cuts and unnecessary programmatic changes. The result is that the middle class ends up paying for tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy. After all, those in the top bracket would see something like a 37% tax cut, 37% tax cut from 39.6 to 25%. That’s pretty hefty. RUSH: I’m sorry to have to tell you that that is not part of the Ryan budget. In fact, the Heritage Foundation’s done a deep analysis of this. One of their problems with the Ryan budget is — and they do have problems with it — is that hefty tax increases of Obama’s are maintained. They’re kept in it. They are not done away with. You know, if I were Jay Carney and the White House — this may never happen, but I’d be a little worried. They got one song now, Tax cuts for the rich. If that ever stops working for them, where are they gonna be? Because that’s the only song they sing now. Everything that the Republicans do is tax cuts for the rich. And if the public stops buying that down the road, then what do they have? We shall see. Ed Henry at Fox News then zinged Carney. He said, “Jay, how can you attack the Ryan budget when you stand here, you don’t even have an Obama budget, how can you attack his?” CARNEY: The president will be putting forward a budget in the next several weeks. As you know, Ed, the president has put forward a proposal that will be reflected in his budget, and the principles will be reflected in his budget. And that proposal, as you know, because you covered it, that he made to the Speaker of the House, demonstrated his willingness to find common ground with the Republicans on both revenue and entitlement cuts. Sadly, the Speaker has not taken it up. In fact, he declared he would never negotiate with the president again, which was a rather stark proclamation. RUSH: Ah, why don’t you just take everything out of context. You people up there are so dishonest and disingenuous, it’s silly to even try to keep up with ’em. But it’s a good point. You guys don’t even have a budget. You haven’t submitted. We haven’t had a budget in four years. What are you doing ripping this one to shreds? At least somebody’s trying to balance the budget, Jay.” “No, you’re just trying to cut taxes for the rich.” The Five Guys hamburger franchise owner, you know what he said? He said his employees, when he told them, his employees had no idea what was involved in Obamacare. He sat them down, and he explained what the rules are for his business and what he’s gonna have to do to stay in business. They didn’t know. His employees had no idea what was involved. He said they did not know that there were penalties if they didn’t buy health insurance. The employees at Five Guys hamburgers did not know that if they don’t buy health insurance, they get fined. They didn’t know it. And I’m telling you, folks, low-information voters have no idea about that. They have no clue. They don’t have the slightest idea. Mount Vesuvius is waiting to erupt.
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